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Cardiothoracic Surgery Blog
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New Techniques May Improve Infant Heart Surgery
Posted 25 Apr 2012 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, April 25 – Two new monitoring techniques may provide early warnings about possible brain damage in children as they undergo surgery for heart defects, researchers report. Autoregulation monitoring is a noninvasive technique that can determine when blood flow to the brain may be low. The other method, a blood test, uses a small sample of blood to detect brain-tissue injury during surgery. Doctors previously had no way to detect brain injuries as they occurred during heart surgery. Details of the research are to be presented Wednesday during an American Heart Association press briefing. Brain injury occurs in 30 percent to 70 percent of infants and children who have surgery to repair congenital heart defects, which are heart abnormalities present at birth. For each 1,000 live births in the United States, about eight babies will have some type of heart defect, according to a ... Read more
Related support groups: Cardiovascular Conditions and Disorders, Cardiothoracic Surgery
Experimental Blood Thinner Given Before Surgery Shows Benefit
Posted 17 Jan 2012 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Jan. 17 – An experimental anti-blood-clotting drug can serve as a replacement for other drugs such as Plavix in the days before heart surgery, a new study has found. The intravenous drug cangrelor appears to have the potential to serve as a "bridge" medication for heart patients to take in the several days before procedures such as coronary artery bypass grafting, the study authors reported. Anti-clotting drugs, also referred to as antiplatelet therapy or anticoagulants – including clopidogrel, known by the brand name Plavix – are often given to heart patients to prevent dangerous vessel-clogging blood clots. But they can cause too much bleeding during surgery, and guidelines suggest that doctors stop treatment with them in the five to seven days before an operation. In the new study, Dr. Dominick Angiolillo of the University of Florida, Jacksonville, and colleagues gave ... Read more
Related support groups: Surgery, Plavix, Clopidogrel, Cardiothoracic Surgery
Pneumonia Most Common Infection After Heart Surgery
Posted 15 Nov 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Nov. 15 – Pneumonia is the most common infection following heart surgery, a new study shows. The researchers also revealed that most infections occur about two weeks after an operation – a week longer than previously thought. They are slated to present their findings Tuesday at the American Heart Association (AHA) annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. "It's not what we expected to find," study author Dr. Michael Acker, chief of cardiovascular surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, said in an AHA news release. After examining more than 5,100 heart surgery patients, whose average age was 64, the researchers found a total of 742 infections. Of these, 278 infections were considered serious, including an intestinal infection known as C. difficile colitis, which affected 1 percent of patients. Bloodstream infections occurred in 0.7 percent of the ... Read more
Related support groups: Pneumonia, Cardiothoracic Surgery
Marriage May Do a Heart Good for Bypass Surgery
Posted 22 Aug 2011 by Drugs.com
MONDAY, Aug. 22 – New research finds that married people are more than twice as likely as single people to be alive 15 years after coronary bypass surgery, although the findings can't prove that having a spouse has a protective effect. In fact, the limitations of ethical research may make it impossible to ever prove that marriage is good for your health. Still, the study provides more evidence that having a long-term mate is good for you, said study co-author Harry T. Reis, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. In recent years, a number of studies have hinted at several apparent health benefits of marriage: it may slightly boost the odds of survival from colon cancer, for one thing, and it might help reduce pain in rheumatoid arthritis patients. The problem is that it's hard to know for sure if marriage directly produces health benefits. It's possible, for example, ... Read more
Related support groups: Cardiothoracic Surgery
Heart Bypass Surgery Rates Drop Dramatically, Study Finds
Posted 3 May 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, May 3 – The number of heart patients getting bypass surgery fell by nearly 40 percent between 2001 and 2008, new U.S. research finds. The drop likely reflects several factors, including a decline in smoking rates, which has led to less coronary artery disease, said senior study author Dr. Peter Groeneveld, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Also, better and more aggressive treatment of coronary artery disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, means fewer patients progress to needing surgery. Another factor is that many patients with blocked arteries instead undergo percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), also called balloon angioplasty, in which a doctor threads a catheter into the artery and inflates a balloon at the tip. Usually, a wire mesh structure called a stent is left behind ... Read more
Related support groups: Cardiothoracic Surgery
Arm Artery No Better Than Leg Vein for Heart Bypass, Study Finds
Posted 11 Jan 2011 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Jan. 11 – Use of an artery from the arm rather than a vein from the leg doesn't lead to better outcomes for coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) patients, according to a new study. U.S. researchers looked at angiographic patency – which means that the graft is open and unobstructed – in more than 700 patients who underwent elective first-time CABG. The arm's radial artery was used in 366 patients and the leg's saphenous vein was used in 367 patients. One year after the procedure, the patency rate in both groups was 89 percent. In addition, there was no difference in the number and types of adverse events, including serious adverse events, according to the report published in the Jan. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Although most clinicians assume that compared with vein grafts, arterial grafts have an improved patency rate, there are little ... Read more
Related support groups: Cardiothoracic Surgery
New Procedure for Aortic Valve Replacement Looks Promising
Posted 22 Sep 2010 by Drugs.com
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 22 – For patients who are too sick to withstand surgery to treat a narrowed aortic valve, a new and less invasive heart procedure might keep them alive, researchers say. As many as 300,000 Americans suffer from aortic stenosis, a condition that prevents the heart's aortic valve from fully opening and sending blood back into the heart. Because of age or poor health, about 30 percent of those with aortic stenosis can't undergo surgery, the researchers say. "Aortic stenosis is a high prevalence disease in the elderly, and with an aging population it's becoming more frequent," said lead researcher Dr. Martin B. Leon, director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. "This is truly a lifesaving procedure for those patients who cannot have surgery and who have this terrible ... Read more
Related support groups: Cardiothoracic Surgery
Antibiotic Sponges Don't Benefit Heart Surgery Patients: Study
Posted 18 Aug 2010 by Drugs.com
TUESDAY, Aug. 17 – A surgically implanted antibiotic-infused sponge doesn't lower the rate of sternal wound infections in patients who've had heart surgery, a new U.S. study has found. The sternum (breastbone) is cut open during heart surgery. Previous research has suggested that infection risk can be reduced if a sponge containing the antibiotic gentamicin is inserted when surgeons are closing the incision. The gentamicin-collagen sponge is approved in 54 countries, and more than 2 million of the sponges have been used in more than 1 million people outside the United States who underwent a wide range of procedures. (The sponge isn't approved in the United States.) One study found that the sponge reduced surgical site infection by 50 percent in cardiac patients. However, this new study by Duke University Medical Center researchers found that the sponge doesn't reduce the risk of ... Read more
Related support groups: Cardiothoracic Surgery, Wound Sepsis